bathory aria

snuffed tapers sighed

as death left impressing

his crest of cold tears on the countess

benighted like ill-fated usher

the house of bathory shrouded

'neath griefs dark facade

if only i could have wept

in mourning by her side

i would have clasped her so tight

like storm-beached aphrodite

drowned on kytherean tides

and kissed her

for from her alone

my lips would have known

enigmas of shadowy vistas

where pleasures took flesh

and pain

remorseless

came freezing the breath

of raucous life hushed unto whispers

benighted. inhaling the pale waning moonlight that crept

through the crypt of her lord who so lucidly slept

benighted. exhaling the wail of black widowhood's toll

waxing eternal night entered her soul

now haranguing grey skies

with revenge upon life

gnathic and sapphic

needs begged gendercide

delusions of grandier denounced the revolt

of descrying cursed glass

disenchanted in vaults

encircled by glyphs midst her sin-sistered cult

with hangman's abandon she plied spiritworlds

to archangels in bondage

from light to night hurled

cast down to the earth where torment would unfurl. but soon

her tarot proved

hybrid rumours spread like tumours

would accrue

and blight her stars

however scarred

to better bitter truths

of cold bloodbaths

as bodies rose

in rigid droves

to haunt her from their

shallow burials imposed

when wolves exhumed

their carthen wombs

where heavy frosts had laboured long

to bare their wounds

to the depths of her soul they pursued

wielding their poison they flew

like a murder of ravens in fugue

and knowing their raptures

would shatter her dreams

she clawed blackened books for damnation's reprieve

baneful cawed canons on amassed enemies

so hallow's eve

as she received

like bellona to the ball

those enemies

fell-sisters heaved

her torturies

cross stained flagstones

to her carriage reined to flee

but she knew she must brave the night through

though fear crept a deathshead o'er the moon

like a murder of ravens in fugue

for each masked

jewelled gaze held dread purpose

horror froze painted eyes to cold stares

and even her dance

in the vast mirrors cast

looked the ill of her future

if fate feasted there. in an age crucified by the nails of faith

when rank scarecrows of christ blighted lands

an aloof countess born an obsidian wraith

dared the abyss knowing well she was damned

her life whispered grief like a funeral march

twisted and yearning

obsessed an entranced

with those succumbing to cruelty

crushed 'neath the gait of her dance

a whirlwind of fire that swept through the briers

of sweet rose her thickets of black thorn had grasped. she demanded the heavens and forever to glean

the elixir of youth from the pure

whilst her lesbian fantasies

reamed to extremes

o'er decades unleashed

came for blood's silken cure

but her reign ended swiftly

for dark gods dreamt too deep

to heed her pleas

when her gaolers were assailed

with condemnations from a priest

who'd stammered rites

in the dead of night

for maidens staining winding sheets

and she postured proud

when her crimes were trowelled

and jezebelled to peasant lips

though she smelt the fires

that licked limbs higher

to the tortured cunts of accomplices

so ends this twisted fable's worth

and though spared the pyre's bite

by dint of nobled bloodlined birth

her sins garnered her no respite

forever severed from the thrill of coming night

where slow death alone could grant her flight

the spirits have all but fled judgement